POETRY
Ocean Poems
Written by Dina Anastasio
www.readinga-z.com
Ocean Poems
A Reading A–Z Poetry Book • Word Count: 1,455
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Wildlife Service; page 19 (inset): courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission/NOAA; page 21: © Steve Downer/ardea.com
Ocean Poems
A Reading A–Z Poetry Book
© Learning A–Z
Written by Dina Anastasio
All rights reserved.
www.readinga-z.com
www.readinga-z.com
Written by Dina Anastasio
Ocean Poems
Table of Contents
Water, Water Everywhere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Is the Sea Really Blue? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Why Salt?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Making Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Tsunamis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
The Hurricane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Ins and Outs of Tides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Icebergs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Coral Reefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Layers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
What’s the Difference?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
On the Move. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Whys of Eyes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Whale Songs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Shifting Sands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
4
Why does the Earth look so blue from up high?
The astronauts see mostly blue from the sky.
What is the answer? What is the source?
The blue that they see is water, of course.
About three-fourths of our planet is covered with seas,
All linked together like the roots of some trees.
Are there four oceans or five? Not all experts agree.
The Pacific, Atlantic, and the cold Arctic Sea.
The fourth, we all know, is the Indian Ocean.
But some experts ponder a difficult notion.
Should the Antarctic be called an ocean as well?
Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. Someone tell me, pray tell.
Water, Water Everywhere
Is the Sea Really Blue?
Is the water in the ocean really blue,
Or is it the way that the sea looks to you?
To understand blue, we must think of the light
That shines from the sun from morning till night.
The light from the sun is made up of shades
That shine on the sea like rainbow parades.
All colors but blue pass through the watery sea.
But blue bounces back at a greater degree.
So the color you see is part of the light
That shines from the sun from morning till night.
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6
As water flows in rivers, it swirls and twirls and vaults.
’Round riverbeds and boulders, it gathers bits of salt.
The slightly salty rivers flow to the sea below,
And there the salty water waits, moving to and fro.
The hot sun shines. Aha, a caper!
It steals the water, turns it to vapor.
But salt is heavy, and it remains.
And that’s the salt the sea contains.
Why Salt?
Tsunamis (also called Tidal Waves)
A tsunami’s a series of huge vicious waves,
That can cause great destruction when the sea misbehaves.
They’re not caused by wind, as other waves are.
How these monsters begin is much more bizarre.
A very strong earthquake happens under the seas,
Which can send out long waves past the beach and the trees.
The wave carries on, taking things in its path.
Then returns to the sea filled with muscle and wrath.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
I like the beach when a strong wind is blowing,
For the wind blows the waves, which keep growing and growing.
The wind moves the water at the top of the sea,
Bringing high jumping waves to the beach just for me.
Sometimes I wish that the wind would blow faster,
But not hard enough to cause a disaster.
For big storms and high winds, like a hurricane’s force
Will create an impossible obstacle course.
Making Waves
The Hurricane
A hurricane without the sea would be a tiny storm,
For hurricanes can’t gather strength without a sea that’s warm.
This storm is strange. It’s backward spin is very hard to enter,
But if you do, you’ll find an eye that’s peaceful at the center.
To be called a proper hurricane, the wind must spin and blow
At 74 miles an hour. Sometimes this storm can grow
Into a mighty monster with fierce torrential rains
That rips the trees and cracks the sky and breaks the windowpanes.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
The Ins and Outs of Tides
Why do those tides come in twice a day?
Over and over they move in and away.
Will high tide roll in at seven, or noon?
The answer lies deep in the pull of the Moon.
Gravity keeps our feet firm on the ground.
It’s what stops us from flying and drifting around.
Well, the Moon has a gravitational pull, too.
It’s so strong that it brings the tides in to you.
But then why do the tides just come in twice a day?
Each day the Earth rotates and the seas move away.
Two times a day the Earth and the Moon
Pull at each other, and somewhere a sea swoons.
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Coral Reefs
Under warm waves where children are swimming,
A magnificent structure is growing and brimming.
Reef sharks and sponges and crabs call it home.
It’s the place where some sea snakes and shrimp like to roam.
A reef is a shelter where sea creatures connect.
It took millions and millions of years to erect.
Tiny creatures, called corals, live together, entwined.
When they die they leave hard, stony limestone behind.
Living corals latch on and the reef grows and grows.
It’s a glorious home for the creatures below.
A reef is a rainforest under the sea,
Where groupers and turtles and clams like to be.
But coral is fragile. We must treat it with care.
Don’t pollute it or touch it when you’re swimming down there.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
Up in the Arctic, where the world is quite cold,
The snow never melts, or so I’ve been told.
Eons and eons of snow keeps on freezing,
Snowing, and freezing. It’s true, I’m not teasing.
Up there in that world, where it’s storming and storming,
The snow packs together and a glacier starts forming.
As the glacier moves on, a chunk, maybe three,
Floats off on its own in the cold Arctic Sea.
These are the icebergs. Some are small, some are not.
The bottoms of icebergs are quite hard to spot.
So remember my friends, when you’re sailing through snow.
“The tip of the iceberg” hides a huge chunk below.
Icebergs
Pollution
When things pollute our lovely seas,
Do turtles shudder? Do dolphins sneeze?
Do whales blow harder when they find
An oil spill creeping close behind?
When plastic wraps a small starfish,
Does it twirl and swirl and flail and swish?
And when those factories dump their waste,
Do lobsters really like that taste?
Do sea snakes wonder as they roam
Why people still pollute their home?
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
Layers
Experts agree that the ocean has zones
Filled with creatures and plant life and lots of unknowns.
Think of a rainforest. There’s a variety of layers.
Each layer is filled with a variety of players.
Plants cannot live without sun that shines bright.
In the sea they are found at the top where it’s light.
Creatures surviving on plant life live here,
For there’s plenty to eat and sunlight is near.
The layers below have less and less light
Until, at the bottom, it’s as black as the night.
Down deep by the floor, where there isn’t a view,
There are fish without eyes, for no light can get through.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
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The whale is one mammal that lives in the ocean.
Like a human, its songs are filled with emotion.
It’s a warm blooded creature that gives birth to its young,
And in order to live, it breathes air through its lungs.
Now, those fish over there, avoiding the whales,
Are different from mammals in many details.
For fish are cold blooded, and they do not breathe air.
They breathe through their gills and lay eggs here and there.
So how do these mammals, these dolphins and whales,
Live together with fish? That’s another long tale.
What’s the Difference?
The Whys of Eyes
Don’t dive into the ocean in search of footballfish.
Three thousand feet is much too deep. No chance you’ll get your wish.
These round and eerie creatures live down where it is dark,
Below the reef, below the whale, below the great white shark.
The footballfish has tiny eyes, for if you live down there
No need to see. It’s far too dark. There’s blackness everywhere.
But not all creatures of the deep have eyes as small as mites.
The body of a vampire squid has tiny blinking lights
That can be flicked whenever this squid is in the mood.
Its eyes are large. It’s found a way to search for hidden food.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
Why do whales travel far?
Aren’t they happy where they are?
I guess in winter when it’s cold
They migrate south, or so I’m told.
I think the hungry whales conclude
That in warm waters there’s more food.
I know another crucial reason
Why whales go south to spend the season.
Southern seas are warm and nice,
And better for their calves than ice.
On the Move
Whale Songs
The humpback whale sings lovely songs,
From six to fifteen minutes long.
Some songs are roaring. Some are groans.
Some are trills, or chirps, or moans.
Each song has phrases that repeat,
Whale patterns sent out to greet.
Groups of phrases form a theme,
A message sent out like a beam.
But here’s the strangest thing of all,
When groups of humpbacks sing and call,
Somehow each one just seems to know
Exactly how each phrase should go.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry
Shifting Sands
Where does the beach get all of that sand?
Does it come from the sea or down from the land?
Does the tide bring it in, or does it float out?
Does it ride on a wave that shifts it about?
Well, sand is made up of small pieces of rock
That’s been rained on and frozen and rolled and rocked.
It arrives on the beach from mountains and rivers,
When the tide takes it out, it’s all grains, bits, and slivers.
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Ocean Poems • Poetry